Make The Most Out Of Your MBA & Land Your Dream Job

Early in my career, I went from working on sales compensation systems in healthcare to developing marketing campaigns for Puff Daddy, Mary J Blige, and Tom Petty at Universal Music.

For the last couple of years, I have met with and visited MBA students from the University of Utah to share any career advice or relevant information I might have. Here are some notes I put together for my first presentation.

I received my MBA from Harvard Business School some time ago , but I can still remember with clarity many of the intentional steps I took to get the most out of my MBA and dream job in the music business.

You Have Permission To Pivot
Your MBA program is a great time to pursue things you have always been interested in. You have both the permission and the opportunity to try new things and make radical career changes.

Some great ways to explore your new career include:

• Summer internship: I thought I might be interested in consulting, so I spent my summer working for an excellent consulting firm. The people were fantastic, but I really didn’t like being a consultant.
• Sponsored work project: I was able to work on a project with Paramount Pictures that offered a insiders view of the entertainment business, some good contacts, and paid trips to Los Angeles to pursue my dream of working in the music business. The results of our study were published in The Hollywood Reporter – -providing some credibility in my job search where I had no industry experience.
• Your colleagues: the best information about what an industry or company can come from the students around you. Since most good MBA programs require work experience, chances are you can find someone who has worked in the industry you are interested in.

Plug:  Check out my new company REVgtm

Network, Network, Network
Good things come to those who hustle and create their own opportunity. Anyone who tells you they don’t is setting the bar too low for themselves. Yes recruiters may be calling, but you should set your own targets and not have a recruiter determine your career.

Getting to know your fellow MBA’s is critical. It’s the strongest component of my network today.  Some of my most trusted professional contacts came during business school. Make it a goal to meet and have quality interactions with 100 people from your business school program. I was very involved in many business school activities including a business ethics forum started by a friend, the b-school musical, and the volunteer consulting group.

Instructors are also an important part of your networking resources. The connection between business schools and the private sector is very strong. These are very well-connected people.  My former classmate works in the commerce department for the Obama administration, the result of an introduction by a former professor.

You are investing a lot of money and time over these two years, get the most out of it. The stronger you make your network, the more you enhance the brand of your MBA and your alma mater — which in turn,makes you more valuable.

During my second year of the MBA program, I worked as an intern at the local branch office for Arista records and helped put up posters, monitor music playlists, and basically do anything I was told. During that time, I went to New York and Los Angeles at least once per month to meet people in the music industry. I had completed over 70 informational interviews with various levels of music industry people. This was an excellent education, but also a huge benefit – because an important part of the entertainment industry is who you know. This was critical in landing my dream music industry job (more below).

Build Your Brand Online
The first thing a potential employer will do is Google your name to find results about you. I do this with every potential business partner or meeting I have with a new person. You need to have more than a Linked in profile because when someone does a search, there is an entire page of results that show up – and you want to make sure that first page of results tells a positive story about who you are.  You can find more pro-branding tips in this article I wrote Mashable.

Plug:  Follow me on Twitter @knakao

Sonia Karkenny
Sonia was the executive admin to the Al Teller, the head of Universal Music which owned MCA, Universal, and Motown records. Al worked out of both New York and Los Angeles where Sonia managed his appointments. For a period of 8 months Sonia tried to help get me a meeting with Al in both offices. On a trip to LA she asked if I wouldn’t mind waiting in a small office for up to 8 hours to get 15 minutes of Al’s time. She got me the meeting with Al and the first thing he asked is what I had done to research the industry. I started rattling off the names from the +70 informational interviews and the work I had done in my internship. I walked out of the meeting with a job.  In the next couple of years I was promoted to a national sales manager managing a team of 8 reps and became Director of Marketing where I handled the marketing campaigns for a roster of artists. It was a dream job that gave me exposure to every part of the music business and the opportunity to work with artists including Tom Petty & BB King (they were already big), Puff Daddy, Mary J Blige, and the Quentin Tarantino Reservoir Dogs soundtrack.

My key takeaways here are to hustle, be persistent, and know that everyone is important in your career.   You never know who will put in the extra effort to make the difference.  In my case it was Sonia, and it underscores the importance of my next point:

Be Nice
You represent your school, and yourself.  MBA’s sometime’s get a bad rep. You are spending a lot of money on this degree and you want other people to value the MBA brand. Everyone knows your smart, but are you likable, do they want to work with you?

On that note, make sure to send a follow-up and thank you note when you interview. It is also an opportunity to bring up a selling point you may have forgotten or stumbled on during your interview. My rule of thumb is that if you want the job send both an email and a hand-written note to the hiring manager. Not many people do this and you will stand out. If you don’t want the job, send an email anyway – chances are good that you may run into the person again. I have actually kept in touch with folks I have met during interviewing that have become valuable colleagues.